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Prep: A Love Letter to Raglans
March 4th, 2010
Often when I cast on for a new design, it’s after hours of prep work. Swatching, re-swatching, changing stitch patterns, taking measurements, doing math, making notes. If you’ve taken one of my classes, you know I’m a huge fan of gauge swatching. Taking that half hour to work up a good square of sample fabric – and then blocking it properly before measuring – is time well spent. In addition to just making sure that you’re knitting at the right tension, it’s an opportunity to break the ice with your new yarn, to learn how it feels under your finger tips, to see how the texture unfolds with every stitch.
But, I won’t lie to you. I did not swatch for this design. I simply pulled out my 4mm addi clicks and cast on.
Sometimes an idea is too captivating to wait. I had this cable in my mind, and I wanted to design a raglan around it, with the cable panels coming down on either side of the yoke, then continuing through the body on a background of reverse stockinette. Because the cable panels are quite wide, my neckline cast on was more or less set, without swatching or multiplication.
The yarn is Plymouth Galway, close enough to Cascade 220 that I could predict my gauge within a fraction of a stitch.
So, I took that leap and cast on.
Raglans in the round are popular for this very reason; spontaneity.
They are forgiving. Because you start with a square (or a circle) for the neckline, if it’s a wee bit large, it won’t matter; just pick up stitches and knit on that neckband a little deeper than planned. (Of course, if it’s too small to fit over your head, that’s a massive problem that can only be remedied by cutting or frogging back to the beginning.)
Raglans are easy to fit. If the body gets a bit large before your yoke is deep enough, Raglans look even classier when working a few inches even at the end of the yoke. Because you can try on as you work, you can make sure the size is right, and the shaping is bang-on, long before you’ve finished the garment.
They are the ultimate blank canvas. Working in the round affords unique design opportunities that seams and set in sleeves can’t fathom. And for designers, with the yoke in a single piece, it’s easy to see the big picture early on in the project, early enough to shift direction, or add in some feature you hadn’t planned.
However, raglans aren’t the be-all and end-all of knitting pattern design.
There’s nothing like a proper set in sleeve to make you feel elegant and classy. And seams ARE often important in knitting. Seams lend structure to garments, helping them stay in shape over the years, or keeping a potentially unruly stitch pattern in check. For example, on my Slow Curve pattern, seams play an important role both in terms of structure and design. Circular yokes are beautiful to work, and allow for seemingly magical colourwork that grows and changes organically. And so on.
But I love the Raglan. And I love it for designs like this one, where the structure fits my idea so very perfectly.
I’m designing more and more this way right now. Brief flash of an idea turns into the beginnings of a garment. Some math, some planning, some design details fleshed out on the needles. I find it exciting and rewarding, if not exactly low risk.
I may need to rip this beautiful blue thing back to the beginning. I know this, and I’m prepared, just in case. But maybe not. Maybe it will all continue to come together, the right shape, the right size. With little advanced prep work and one solid idea.
Olympic Knitting – completed!
February 26th, 2010
While watching something other than the Olympics last night, I cast off the monstrous cowl and wove in about thirty five ends, due to the surgery performed earlier in the week.
I was scared to put it on. See, I’d tried it on last week, and it fit absolutely perfectly. What if the changes I’d made to the armholes didn’t work out right? What if this (third!) version of the cowl still didn’t sit exactly right?
What if I had to rip back again?!?
Luckily, it fits great. And I love it. And it’s exactly what I’d pictured when I first cast on.
Happy Friday, everyone!
I made a bad, but then I fixed it.
February 20th, 2010
I had a bit of a knitting disaster late last night. I’d just finished knitting the armhole bands and tried on the new tunicy sleeveless sweater. It fit, but it wasn’t right. The arms were too droopy and too bulky. They hung weird, and they felt even weirder.
So, I assessed the situation and decided to cut off the excess fabric and reknit the bands, about 3 inches closer to the body.
Yes, cut.
I’ve done this before, many times, but always on stockinette or rib. When you’re done knitting a sweater and it’s just too short, it’s a great solution. Weave the needle through, trim a row or two above the needle, and then pick out all those ends until you’re left with live stitches.
This, my friends, doesn’t work so well with cables and lace.
I was left with a big, horrible, scary, disastrous mess.
Maybe the best decision I made last night was leaving it until the morning to fix. I wasn’t sure I even could, to be honest. I had ideas of stabilizing with the sewing machine and then attaching bands with mattress stitch to hide the seam.
In the end, I decided to try it once more the ‘old-fashioned way’. I carefully wove my circular needle through every stitch a few rounds below the unraveling stitches.
The cables actually helped this, as the twists gave me a good idea where to weave the needle.
All the way around, I was pretty sure I’d grabbed as many stitches as possible, and that all of the unraveling bits were loose above the needle, not below. This is the key, really. As long as the loose stitches are above the needle, nothing can really happen to the knitting below, and the ribbing would be stable and ’safe’.
Working the first round of rib, I had to adjust a little to pick up another stitch here or there, or sometimes even let one drop off the needle if I’d picked it up twice.
After I’d done a few rounds, I used my fingers and a scissors to pull and snip away at the leftover bits, letting them unravel as much as possible.
Although I’ve gotten it as cleaned up as possible, there are still a bunch of ends to weave in, and a few floats of yarn that need to be tacked down. But, I’m pretty sure my ribbing is going to stay put, and the rest of the lace won’t unravel.
The best part? From the front, you can’t tell even a little bit. It looks as smooth and even as if I’d picked up stitches from a provisional cast on.
Luckily, this was the hard side. The other armhole is where I’d cast off the lace panels, so it’ll be a matter of unworking the seam and frogging back a few inches.
Phew.
Knitting saved.